


softest hearts

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends to Lovers, F/M, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-16 18:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16500719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: “He was drunk, more than usual. He’s been drinking a lot since Tommy left for college. And I don’t know, he saw my Halloween costume and he just. Snapped.” He’s frowning even more, when he added, “I didn’t know where to go so I came here.”“You were right to come. You know you can always rely on me.”(AU where Tommy goes to college, and things get complicated.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yo people, where are all the Harvina fics at??? Can't believe I have to do everything myself again...
> 
> Anyway FAIR WARNING for very graphic descriptions of physical abuse at the beginning. Harvey's dad is a piece of shit who deserves nothing but to rot in hell like the monster he is. So if you're sensitive about that particular topic, please be careful about reading.

She just turned thirteen when it happens.

In years to come, Sabrina will see it for what it truly is – a blessing for a witch but a curse for a human. She will look back on that night, and it will all make sense, fate playing them between its long fingers. But tonight, about to blow her candles with her family around her, she only startles at the loud knock on the door.

Susie’s father is only supposed to come and pick her up for Roz’s Halloween party in two hours, late enough for Sabrina to celebrate her birthday with her family before she goes partying with her friends. She looks between her aunts, surprised and curious as to what the disruption could be; clients barely ever show up unannounced, especially so late into the day.

“I will go and check,” Aunt Hilda says as she stands up from her seat. “Back in a tick.”

Her gait is slower and a little more wobbly than usual, what with being killed and coming back from the death this morning, as Sabrina watches her go. She doesn’t want to blow her candles if Hilda isn’t here to see, not after her aunt spent so many hours cooking and making sure everything was perfect for her birthday.

The echo of a creaking door is followed by a high-pitched scream.

Aunt Zelda doesn’t need for her sister to call after her to be on her feet, and Sabrina and Ambrose follow suit only moments later, the three of them hurrying out of the kitchen and to the front door. A gasp of horror escapes Sabrina at the sight.

“Harvey!”

She runs the last few steps toward him, where he leans heavily against Aunt Hilda. When she grabs his shoulder, it is as if the last ounces of strength leave his body and he sags against her, throwing the both of them off-balance. He falls to his knees and she follows, holding him up in front of him.

It’s impossible to ignore what happened to him from up close, his face black and blue, his lip split opened, his hands trembling like crazy. A particularly nasty bruise has already blossomed on his right cheekbone, and his fringe hides another cut to his forehead that appears when she pushes his hair out of his eyes. His breathing is ragged, like he ran all the way here without stopping once. Which he probably did.

It doesn’t that a genius to put everything together.

“Come on, don’t just all stand there,” Aunt Zelda exclaims after a few moments. “Ambrose, help me bring the boy to the living room. Hilda, if you could fetch the – med kit.”

Sabrina is reticent to let go of Harvey, even when both her aunt and cousin try to direct him to the living room. She stays as close to him as humanly possible, then sits by his side the moment he is put on one of the sofas. He leans into her, head against her shoulder and so out of it Aunt Zelda could put a healing spell on him and he wouldn’t even notice. By the look in Aunt Zelda’s eyes, she is thinking exactly the same.

But explaining the disappearance of nasty bruises away would not be so easy, and so they let Hilda take care of him the human way when she comes back with balls of cotton, a bottle of alcohol, and bandages. Harvey hisses under his breath every time the burning liquid touch his battered skin, but doesn’t complain at the band-aid put on his forehead or the painkillers shoved down his throat.

In the background, Zelda and Ambrose argue about what to do next in hushed tones, so low Sabrina has to strain her ears to make up the words.

“We cannot have him stay here, this is madness.”

“We can’t let him go back, Aunt Zee! The man would killed him! Nearly did the job tonight already.”

“Rest assure this monster will have his due when his time come. The Dark Lord does not look kindly on violence against children.”

“So we just wait until the guy dies? And do nothing?”

“He’s a human child, Ambrose. He’s not ours to care about.”

“He’s an innocent boy, Zelda! Not even you are so heartless as to let a child suffer that way twice.”

Harvey is breathing loudly against her neck now, exhaustion taking over as Hilda tends to the bruises on his knuckles, only physical proof that he tried giving as much as he got. Sabrina shouldn’t be surprised that he fought back; Harvey might be kind and soft and gentle, but a coward he is not. He would not get down without a fight, not even against his own father.

“One night, and one night only,” is Zelda’s final word. “The humans will deal with the situation in the morning.”

It is decided that Ambrose’s bedroom is off-limits, if only because of the number of trinkets, potions and books that Harvey could find comes morning. The guest bedroom, made with the comfort of other witches in mind, is not an option either. Which leaves Sabrina to give her bed to Harvey for the night, since her room is the most human-friendly of all. And, after refusing to take the guest room, and thus much arguing back and forth with Aunt Zelda, she managed to get a camp bed for herself in her bedroom. No way she would leave Harvey to his own devices, not after what he’s been through.

Then there is the matter of telling Susie why she can’t go to the party, and calling Rosalind to apologise about it, and jumping through hoops not to spill the beans about what happened while still being believable about her lies. Sabrina has never been really good at those.

By the time everything is settled, birthday cake abandoned in the kitchen and everyone a little less tense, Sabrina bids her goodnights and goes to her room. Harvey is yet to stir in his sleep; Aunt Hilda must have given him something with a bit more kick than just painkillers, which might be for the best. From the look on his face alone, it might be better for him to sleep, if only not to feel the pain.

Sabrina hesitates, just for a moment, when it comes to going to bed. She’s known Harvey since they were children, like most kids in Greendale. They all grew up together, all went to the same school. She and Harvey used to be the same height until this summer, when he suddenly started growing like a twig, all stretched limbs and skinny body. He’s about a head taller now, and always teasing her about it in that funny-yet-gentle way of his.

Which, according to Roz, sounds very flirty too. And perhaps Sabrina is flirting back at him, because she likes the way he’s the only one to call her ‘Brina’ or how soft his eyes are when he finds her across the classroom, or how clueless he is when Susie and Roz talk in depth about movies. Sabrina thinks she likes him, and then some. She also thinks it’s because he’s so shy and so uncomfortable in his own body that he hasn’t asked her out quite yet.

Sabrina doesn’t want to turn this situation into anything more than it is. But she also has that feeling deep inside her stomach at the mere thought if not being close to Harvey tonight, something close to guilt and protectiveness all at once. She couldn’t be here to protect him tonight, but it doesn’t mean she can’t do anything about it now.

So she grabs the small throw blanket on her loveseat, the one near the window where she usually spends hours reading, and lays on top of the blankets on the bed. Close enough to Harvey that she can put her head on his shoulder, but with enough layers between them for it not to be indecent.

She might imagine how he sighs gently in his sleep, or the way his breathing calms down a little when she cuddles against his side. Then again, she will not turn the situation into more than it is. They’re only sleeping; she’s only protecting him through the night.

 

…

 

She wakes up to someone playing with her hair, and it takes Sabrina way too long to understand there is something wrong about it. When she opens her eyes, blinks against the morning sun, a solid arm is thrown over her waist and delicate fingers are running through her hair. She turns around to face a sleepy-tired looking Harvey.

The bruises on his face have settled on a yellow-purple shade during the night, matching the shadows under his eyes. He smiles down at her as a way of greeting, but it turns into a wince when the muscles on his cheeks shift. She reaches for his face, cold finger against the burning skin of his jaw.

“‘Morning,” he says at all, and it should be weird. 

Waking up in Harvey’s arms, after a night of sleeping side by side, after the evening they had. It should be, but it isn’t. Still, Sabrina shifts on the bed to put some distance between them. The Spellmans are not really touchy-feely in their affections, and being so close to a gentle boy throws her off-balance quite a bit.

She moves back a little, and he frowns, so she changes the subject. “How are you feeling, Harvey?”

The frown doesn’t leave his face, although for an entire different altogether. “Like I was run down by a bus,” he says, obviously trying and failing at some humour. He sighs then, his head falling back against the pillow and his eyes closing. She will not force him to talk if he doesn’t want to, will not ask for details he refuses to share. So she gives him time, to reflect, to collect his thoughts, to decide for himself. “He was drunk, more than usual. He’s been drinking a lot since Tommy left for college. And I don’t know, he saw my Halloween costume and he just. Snapped.” He’s frowning even more, when he added, “I didn’t know where to go so I came here.”

“You were right to come. You know you can always rely on me.”

She knew things were a little rougher ever since Tommy moved states to go to college on his football scholarship. Harvey and his father never got along when Tommy was there, and his absence only made it worse. But she had no ideas things were that bad. She didn’t know people could be so cruel as to do this to their own children.

“I ruined your birthday.”

“No, of course you didn’t.” Her fingers against his jaw again, soft and comforting. “There will be other parties, that’s okay.”

But he worries his lip, still upset over being a bother to her and the rest of their friends, and it opens his wound again. A single drop of blood appears on the corner of his mouth, giving Sabrina the perfect excuse to escape the bed and the tension between them with promises of breakfast and painkillers as she all but runs downstairs.

Unsurprisingly, all three other Spellmans are in the kitchen – Ambrose sitting on the counter, Zelda at the table, Hilda cooking breakfast for everyone. The latter perks up at Sabrina’s entrance, immediately handing a glass of orange juice to her that Sabrina gulps down quickly.

“How is he? Did he wake up?”

“Yeah, he’s okay. Better than he looks, I think.”

“Good,” Aunt Zelda replies, before she opens her newspaper and disappears behind it. “We can drop him off at a relative’s today then.”

Sabrina’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly a few times as her brain struggles to catch up with what her aunt just said. She turns toward Aunt Hilda, giving her a panicky look, but the woman only offers her a tight-lipped smile before she goes back to her fries eggs. Ambrose isn’t any use either, though he does look upset too.

“He doesn’t have anyone else. Tommy lives out of state and only comes back for holidays. Aunt Zelda, we can’t let him go back home!”

“And we sure can’t let him stay here either, Sabrina! Look around you; it would take him barely a few seconds to notice something is unusual about this place, and it would only lead to a number of problems we don’t need. I, for once, am enjoying our peaceful relationship with the High Priest. Circe knows it took long enough for the Spellmans to be in his bad graces again.”

Sabrina opens her mouth again to argue back, but Hilda beats her to it. “And he’s a Kinkle, Sabrina. Nothing good can come out of this.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Aunt Zelda folds her newspaper in two to stare at her. Aunt Hilda turns back toward her, eggs forgotten. Even Ambrose, apple halfway to his mouth, stops in his tracks. “What?!”

Silence only follows her yell of a question, thick as a midnight fog. She looks between Zelda and Ambrose, hoping for an answer from them. But it is Aunt Hilda who comes to stand by her side, a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

“You have to understand, my darling, not all humans…”

“He’s a witch hunter,” Ambrose drops on her, startling her. “All the Von Kinkles were, back in the day. They may have changed their name, but not their traditions.”

“No, not Harvey, he – he cries when the dog dies in a movie, he can’t – he wouldn’t –”

She stammers a few more sounds, shrugging Aunt Hilda’s hand off, more constricting than comforting now. Even Zelda is looking at her with some kind of pity in her eyes now. 

“And I’m certain he would say the same about you, my dear,” Zelda placards her. “But how well does he actually know you? And you him?”

She wants to tell Zelda that she knows Harvey like the back of her hand, she’s known him since he was a kid, a kindred spirit, a complementary soul. But Zelda is right, in a way. It has been thirteen years of Sabrina hiding her true nature, not only to Harvey but also to all her friends, without ever slipping or making a mistake. She has come close, once or twice as a little girl, but witches are skilled at hiding in plain sight. 

And if she can hide this from the world, what could Harvey be lying about too?

Zelda’s smile is knowing, a little too smug perhaps. “It is the natural order of things, Sabrina. The sooner you accept it, the better.”

She has half a mind of arguing again, if only because she is a Spellman and Spellman never back down without a fight. But then Aunt Hilda is squeezing her shoulder again, and she whispers, “There is nothing a good protective spell can’t do.”

Which will have to be enough, it seems. 

Sabrina sighs, long and slow, before she walks toward the cupboard to grab two plates. She might have to accept Harvey’s fate, but he still deserves breakfast. And a good explanation laced with lies and half-truth. 

She is shoving scrambled eggs in one plate, wondering if Harvey likes sugar or milk with his tea, when loud knocking on the door starle her. She yelps, fork falling on the floor. 

Aunt Zelda folds her newspaper and slaps it on the table. “Will we never know peace in this house?!”

The knocking is louder now, and with it comes a booming voice. “Open, you witches!”

It might not have been ‘witches’.

“For Judas’ sake,” Zelda sighs as she stands up. 

Ambrose jumps off the kitchen counter to follow her, and so Sabrina and Hilda do the same. A bad déjà vu. Even more so when the door opens with a bang on Mr Kinkle, looking like fury. Red in the face, with murder in his eyes, standing up by sheer stubbornness and anger despite his still inebriate state. 

“You stole my son, you witches!” (Definitely not ‘witches.’) “Give him back.”

“Now, now, Mr Kinkle,” Zelda appeases him, her voice saccharine sweet despite the sharpness of her smile, “Everyone in this house is here of their own free will.”

“He is  _ my _ son. And you know what happens to your kind when you don’t follow  _ our _ rules.”

He takes a threatening step forward, but Zelda only needs to raise one hand and stop him in his tracks. His bloodshot eyes widen in surprise as he struggles to move but can barely shake a limb. 

“If you could be so kind as to not make threats in my house.”

“Dad?” Harvey appears at the top of the stairs, holding himself tall despite the trembling of his still weak body. He climbs down the stairs, but barely makes a few steps before Sabrina puts herself in front of him, one hand on his chest to stop him. An unmovable shield. “What are you doing here?”

“Bringing you home.”

Harvey trembles under her hand, though Sabrina couldn’t tell if it is fury or fear. Or perhaps both. She moves ever so slightly as to put herself completely between Harvey and his father, not once looking away from the older man. 

“What if I don’t want to go home?” Harvey asks, voice trembling as much as his body.  _ Not chickenshit, _ his voice echoes in Sabrina’s head. He never was. 

Mr Kinkle’s snort of laughter is as ugly as his soul. “So what? Rough you up a little and you run away like a girl? That’s not how I raised you, boy. But that’s the problem with you, always has been. Too much of your coward bitch of mother in you. Look what it–”

Zelda’s hand wraps around his neck, choking his next words. He sputters pathetically, struggling to step back but still unable to move, his eyes so wide they almost pop out of their sockets.

“Listen to me carefully, you pathetic joke of a man. There is nothing cowardly about a woman, especially not when compared to a man who dares raising a hand against his own flesh and blood. That woman carried your spawn in her belly for months, and it shows more bravery and fierceness than anything you could do in your sad little life. Now I am going to make myself very clear; you will leave our property and you will never come back. Because if I see you around that boy ever again, by Satan I will make sure you suffer in this life as much as you will in the next. Men like you deserve nothing more than to rot in Hell. Leave now, go on with your life. It is more kindness than you have shown for an innocent life, and more kindness than you will ever deserve.” 

She lets go of him and snaps her fingers.

He runs to the hills.

With a flick of the wrist she slams the door close, before she turns back toward him. They all stare in stunned silence, Harvey’s heart racing under Sabrina’s fingers. Zelda rolls her fingers and clears her throat, before she takes a few steps forward.

“Ambrose, get the guest room ready.” She stops next to Harvey, barely offering him a glance even as she puts her hand on his shoulder. “You live here now.”

 

…

 

A human living under a witchy roof is more complicated than any of them had thought. They have to hide most things from sight of course, or cloak them under a concealment spell, or plain put it in a room by the morgue so they know he will not wander there. Then there is the matter of making sure never to let anything slip away in front of him, careful with their every word, and not to let it be known by the coven that they are now lodging a human boy. Sabrina worries about the number of erasing spells they have to cast on his memories during the first month, simply because Zelda can’t control herself when upset, which is often.

And, of course, they have to find an excuse as to why Harvey is staying at the Spellmans’ as not to draw any more attention on them in the eyes of Greendale’s population. Something about bills to pay and the pressure of Tommy’s absence on their father, about benevolent aunts taking a poor child under their wing. Greendale sees what Greendale wants to believe, and the lies slip easily through the cracks of their made-up stories.

Sabrina loves everything about it though. They walk to school in the morning and do their homework together by the fireplace, go to the comic book shop during the weekends, hang out at the coffee shop more often than not. She spends hours in Harvey’s room, reading on his bed while he draws at his desk, chatting about their latest maths test or the upcoming town event. She can’t remember what it was like, not to always have Harvey in her life; she doesn’t want to go back to a time when she was feeling lonely in her own house.

Of course, Roz and Susie corner her in the school’s bathroom in the first weeks of their new living arrangements.

“Are you and Harvey dating?” Roz asks, with the kind of resentment in her voice that only comes from secrets unshared between friends.

“What? No, of course not.”

Susie puts her little fists on her hips. “So why does it sound like he’s your live-in boyfriend now?”

Sabrina can’t help but laugh, just a little. “I told you why he’s living with us, and that’s it. Come on, guys, you know I would tell you if…”

She must be blushing, or at least not lying as well as she’d hope, before Roz leans forward and squints at her. That is the problem with best friends; they know you too well for your own good. “You’re not dating, but you wish you were. Sabrina Spellman! You have a crush on Harvey!”

“Do not!” she shots back, like a pouty child. She even crosses her arms and everything, one second away from stomping her foot. But the lie is a poor one, the feelings too transparent on her face, and she soon gives up with a loud sigh. “Okay, maybe a little.”

The two other girls gasp and squeak with happiness.

 

…

 

Things get awkward as Christmas rolls in and Tommy comes back home to Greendale for winter break. Harvey doesn’t want to go back to his father’s, but also doesn’t want to avoid his brother, but also doesn’t want Tommy to feel guilty about what happened. Chances are Tommy will want to drop college on the spot and stay home to look after his brother, and Harvey can’t have that. It wouldn’t be fair on his older brother, now that he found himself a way out of Greendale and his doomed life as a miner.

He and Sabrina talk for hours about different scenarios, what to say or do once Tommy makes it home. He is to come and fetch Harvey in a few hours, and they still don’t have a proper master plan in place. It’s quite the mess, really.

In the end, it all comes down to Ambrose.

He’s the one to open the door when Tommy comes knocking, in all his thin-robe-and-very-little-else glory – he’d toned it down in the first weeks of Harvey living with them, but it didn’t last long. Sabrina sits on the stairs while Harvey is finishing to pack his overnight bag, so she is first in line to see Tommy’s widening eyes as they settle on Ambrose who’s now leaning suggestively against the door. Her cousin is a great many things, but good at understanding not everyone is attracted to him he is definitely not. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t care.

“Kinkle Senior,” he grins. “What a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

“Hm. Hi,” Tommy replies tensely. Then, looking above Ambrose’s shoulder. “Hey, Sabrina.”

“Hey, Tommy,” she replies with a little wave of her hand.

Truth is, she doesn’t know Tommy all that well, mostly because she never hung out at Harvey’s all that often. He was always so eager to get out of his house, and she understands why now. But Tommy was always nice to all of them, and Harvey worships him – it’s easy to know why. He’s nice and smart and sensitive, the older brother any younger sibling would look up to.

He looks nervous now, cleaning his throat twice before he speaks up again. “Are – hum, are your aunts here?”

“Working, actually.”

“Oh.” He sways on the spots a little, arms awkwardly stiff by his sides. Like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his body, and isn’t that something Harvey does too. Sabrina never noticed how similar the two of them were before today. “I wanted to thank them, about – you know – and tell them – we, well, I’ll take care of Harvey now.”

“Really?” Ambrose asks. “Because we’re fine with him staying here.”

“Well, I’m his brother and it’s my job to take care of him.”

Tommy might not notice, but Sabrina is first in line to see the way Ambrose’s hand moves behind his back, slow and measure motions of the wrist that come with a silent incantation. The eight-shaped flick of a persuasion spell.

“No, really, we have it under control.” Ambrose’s voice is soft, deliberate in its every word. “You don’t have anything to worry about, we’ll keep taking good care of him.”

“Surely I can’t accept charity without–”

“We can work out a price, if you want.”

“Ambrose,” Sabrina says in warning, not liking her cousin’s games.

“Nothing ludicrous, of course. But when the time comes, you will owe us one. How’s that for a deal?”

It all happens so fast, Ambrose holding his hand out and Tommy shaking it, that Sabrina can’t even complain, or protest, or throw a line about how her cousin doesn’t turn straw into gold for a living. The deal is sealed between the two men with a handshake, and Ambrose’s other hand stops moving behind his back just in time for Harvey to appears on top of the stairs.

He throws himself at his brother, the two of them hugging like there is no tomorrow, before they wave their goodbyes at the Spellmans with a promise to be back in a few days, just before New Year’s Eve. Which, in a way, is good – they obviously don’t celebrate Christmas, and the tree they put in the living room for show will soon burn down from the intensity of Zelda’s stare alone. It would have been difficult, to play pretend at such human traditions for Harvey’s sake. It’s better for him to be with his brother, his human family.

It does leave an emptiness in the house that Sabrina doesn’t quite know how to fill though. She wanders around aimlessly for the first day, then wanders the woods too with her beanie all the way down her eyebrows and her scarf all the way up her nose, then she bothers Ambrose into entertaining her, and walks alone in town, and practice her spell-casting and potion-making skills without fear of being caught.

Even Aunt Hilda is worried about her, and about how much of her life revolves around a human boy. There isn’t much to be done about it now, and Sabrina just has to learn to live with those feelings.

Getting Harvey back for New Year’s Eve, his knocking on her bedroom door late at night before she runs toward him and hugs him, is more of a relief than she would have expected. She didn’t know you could care that much about a person, or miss them like a part of your own body taken from you. 

New, blossoming feelings that leave her giddy and nervous all at once.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for the reviews, kudos and bookmarks, guys! I'm very glad to see people interested in this lil fic (even though we're still missing more Harvina fic writers, the fuck)
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, I have nothing against Morons. It just so happens that I had "Hello" stuck in my head while writing this chapter.)

“Harvey, would you be a dear and grab those jars?”

Harvey immediately stands up from his seat at the kitchen table, textbooks and papers scattered all over it, to help Aunt Hilda with her jam making. He barely has to rise on his tiptoes to grab said jars, and delicately put them down on the kitchen counter with a smile toward Aunt Hilda. 

She replies in kind, and squeezes his chin between two fingers. “It’s so nice having someone tall to help around the house.”

“Hey, I’m tall!” Ambrose protests. He sits in a corner, feet on a side table as he peels an apple with a blunt knife. 

“Tall and willing to help.”

He points the knife at Hilda with a wink. “You got me there.”

Harvey snorts a laugh even as he grabs another set of jars, then closes the cupboard’s door. He shares an amused glance with Sabrina, before she focuses back on her history homework. The essay is due next week, but it’s never a bad thing to wrap things up early. 

She does keep an eye of Harvey though, a habit grown during the past year and a half of him living with the Spellmans. Her aunts got a lot better very quickly at adapting their language in front of him, but one is never too far from the eventual slip up. 

“Thank you for you help, by the way,” Harvey grins down at Aunt Hilda. “Got a A+ on my essay about Emily Bronte!”

“Oh my dear, that’s wonderful!”

“What is?”

Aunt Zelda appears from downstairs, Sabrina and Harvey pulling twin grimaces of disgust at the apron and matching gloves she still wears. She rips one off her hand and makes for grabbing a cigarette, before she glances at Harvey and thinks better of it. 

“Got a good grade on my essay about Bronte,” Harvey explains. 

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Aunt Hilda adds. 

Aunt Zelda makes a face. “Bronte? That righteous bi–brilliant author. Great. Well done.”

Ambrose crunches on his apple to muffle his chuckle, while Sabrina finds her history essay suddenly more fascinating than it was a mere ten seconds ago. Motherhood and appreciation have never come easy to Zelda, but it is particularly obvious every time she interacts with Harvey. She is trying, which is more than anyone else was expecting at first, but it always comes out as cold and distant. Thankfully Harvey doesn’t notice, or care all that much. Or perhaps he’s too polite to point out Zelda’s behaviour toward him, too grateful the woman took him in to be picky about the way she doesn’t seem to warm up to him.

Or maybe he’s even more pure than Sabrina believes, because he sits back at the table, by her side, with a proud smile. When she raises an eyebrow to him in a silent question, he leans forward as to whisper, “She gave me a compliment!”

Sabrina’s heart melts, just a little.

 

…

 

Freshman year only serves to highlight how unconventional Sabrina’s friendship with Harvey is – if one could even use such a word to describe what transpires between the two of them. If nobody was really caring about the situation when they were in middle school, accepting Harvey’s presence in the Spellmans’ household without much questioning, high school is an entire story altogether.

It was to be expected, of course. Teenagers are nosy creatures, running on gossip and juicy stories, and theirs is offered on a silver platter. The two of them arriving at school and leaving together, always sitting next to each other at lunch, sharing some AP classes and group projects. Even Susie and Roz as buffers in their group of friends doesn’t change one simple fact: a boy and a girl live together, and it’s making people talk.

Sabrina stops counting the number of times other girls come and ask her if they have a shot at asking Harvey out, if he’s taken, if they are dating. Sabrina denies everything, as it is the truth. Harvey never asked her out, or even showed any kind of interest in her, at home or otherwise. He is her best friend, and it’s fair game for other girls to be flirty at him and try their luck.

She wouldn’t be upset if he started dating another girl.

Nope. Not at all. She’d be fine.

Really.

Which makes David Anderson asking her out for the Winter Wonderland all the more surprising, because Sabrina was so focused on the idea of Amelia Cooper asking Harvey that. Well. It didn’t even cross her mind that anyone could or would be asking her. 

It leaves her staring at David, mouth agape despite no sound coming out of it as she fails to find a way out of the situation. She doesn’t like David – hell, she doesn’t even know him – and she’s planned on going with Susie and Roz as friends anyway. No pressure of not finding a date, just a fun night out with her friends and a pretty dress. 

“Huh – I – I mean,” she stammers. 

Nobody ever told her how to reject a boy, mainly because Zelda is above that, Hilda is not the biggest catch, and Ambrose would never reject anyone. She has no idea what to do in that situation. How to react. What to say. 

“Hey Brina,” comes Harvey’s voice by her side, his arm solid as it wraps around her shoulders. “We still on for a study session at Cerberus tonight?”

David’s eyes travel between her and Harvey several time, and she wonders what he sees. What so many people see when Harvey casual hangs out next to her locker or walks her to class even if his room is halfway across the building, or gets the last bag of vinegar chips because they’re her favourites. Everything that she dismisses as Harvey just being a good friend, but can be interpreted so differently. 

“Spanish test tomorrow, remember?” Harvey adds when she doesn’t answer. Then, as if only now noticing she isn’t alone, “Hey Anderson, what’s up?”

It’s David’s turn to stammer a little. “Huh – not much – meeting with Mr Peterson in a bit, better keep going.”

He doesn’t quite run away, but it’s a close thing. Sabrina waits until he’s disappeared around the corner to slap Harvey’s chest as hard as she can with the back of her hand. He finally lets go of her, if only to rub the spot theatrically. 

“What was that for?”

“You know why!”

“I really don’t!”

And she believes him, almost. Perhaps it’s easier if she believes him, if she convinces herself that Harvey really doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing or the message he sends other boys when he stands too close to her, when he looks at her with his kind, sad eyes, when he leans as close as possible to whisper a joke in her ear. Maybe he doesn’t know, for real. 

Except. 

Except there’s the ghost of a smirk on his lips.

It sends her heart racing. 

 

…

 

“We need Harvey out of the house.”

Zelda’s statement is met by stunned silence from the other three Spellmans. Not even Hilda, Harvey’s number one supporter in the house, seems to be able to come to the boy’s defense. 

It is only after long seconds of lack of reaction that Zelda looks up from the cigarette she’s lighting, only to meet three wide pairs of eyes. 

“Oh, will you quit it already! The High Priest is coming for dinner on Saturday, and the boy can’t be here, is all.”

Sabrina deflates like a balloon as she lets out a long sigh, and it’s as if everyone in the room is breathing properly again. Some of the tension remains – as always when the High Priest is involved or mentionned – but it is not as awkward as a few seconds ago.

“You need to stop doing that, Aunt Z,” Ambrose comments. 

“As if I would get rid of the boy! He’s the only one standing between us and those dreadful Mormons.”

Sabrina can’t help but snort, just a little. For years now a pair of Mormons have been visiting them, showing up out of nowhere every two months like clockwork. Despite Zelda’s – and Ambrose’s – best effort, they never ran away or were put off by the Spellman household. 

And then Harvey decided on a new tactic. They couldn’t open their mouth to deliver their well-rehearsed speech without him singing something out of the musical that was inspired by their religion, louder than them. They would quiet down and so would he, only to start singing again every time they opened their mouth. 

It’s been over eight months now and they are yet to show their faces again. Even Zelda was silently impressed.

“But why is the High Priest visiting us, sister?” Hilda asks.

Sabrina points in her direction with a nod of the head, a silent agreement to her aunt’s question. As far as she remembers, she’s only ever met the High Priest once a year, during the Feast of Feasts. He never bothers visiting, especially not the Spellmans. There is a reason why they are not active in the coven’s social life, after all. For him to visit is a pretty big deal.

Zelda sighs as she sits at her end of the kitchen table, before she takes a long drag of her cigarette.

“Sabrina’s Dark Baptism is almost a year away, as we all know. He wants to make sure her education is not lacking, despite her not attending the Academy, so that she will not fall behind once her sixteenth birthday has come. It’s nothing more than a homeschool check, really.” Another drag of her cigarette, before she looks at Sabrina. “I want you to work on your spells as much as possible until Saturday evening, so that you will not put us to shame. And we need Harvey out of the house, obviously. We can’t have the High Priest question why we are keeping a human pet.”

Ambrose hides his snort of laughter behind a magazine, while Sabrina doesn’t quite manage to hide her own expression of surprise. But it is, as often, Hilda who replies to her sister. “Once again, he’s a guest, not a pet,” she singsongs.

“We feed him and house him without expecting anything in return. The three of you even show affection to him. That’s a pet.”

Sabrina can’t help but turn toward her cousin, a faux air of outrage on her face as she folds her arms on her chest. “You show affection to him?” she accuses him, while her aunts are busy with a bickering of their own beside her.

Ambrose inspects his nails carefully, theatrically pretending to be nonchalant about it. “Well, I’m only taking care of him because you aren’t.”

Her gasp of indignation isn’t so fake this time. Ambrose challenges her with a raise of his eyebrows, tongue poking between his teeth. It doesn’t take much more for Sabrina to throw herself at him with a growl. He’s faster of course, running away from her with a laugh that only grows louder when she runs after him; first through the living room, them up the stairs to his bedroom.

She chases him around the room before he dashes away and starts pouncing on Harvey’s door. It’s only a few seconds before Harvey opens, headphones still on his ears and an expression of surprise on his face when Ambrose throws himself behind him with a loud “Save me!”

Harvey is such a good sport, Sabrina will give him that, as he puts his hands on each side of the doorframe to prevent her from entering his bedroom, an easy smile on his lips. It clashes painfully with Ambrose’s own smirk of victory, which makes the sight in front of her all the more entertaining.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t stop you.”

Oh, she has so many.

But only a handful she can say out loud without dying of embarrassment, looking at Harvey in the eyes, with Ambrose watching. In the end, she settles on a happy middle, stepping closer to Harvey with a sweet smile. His eyes drop to her lips, just for a second, and he swallows; Sabrina’s own heart beats faster in reply.

“I’ll buy you fries at the cafeteria tomorrow.”

He hesitates.

Just for a second.

“Yeah, he’s all yours,” he announces as he steps aside.

Ambrose is so offended Sabrina has to laugh. “Traitor!” he throws at Harvey, before he pushes past Sabrina and runs away. She entertains the idea to run after him once more, only for a few seconds, before she gives up and instead leans against Harvey’s door frame.

He grins at her, that cute dopey smile that never fails to make her light-headed. Sometimes she wonders, if he knows how deadly that smile is, if he’s aware of the effect he has on her by just before so soft all the time. She’s never understood Hollywood’s thing with bad boys, when boys like Harvey can melt her heart in an instant.

“What was that even about?” he asks.

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to remember what even started it all, until Ambrose’s words of silliness come back to her mind. She shrugs then, both because it is not that important all things considered, and because there is no way she could explain Harvey. “Doesn’t matter, really.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “What are you working on?”

He’s been gathering quite the collection of art supplies through the past few months, all of them piling up on his desk. He’s got some drawings on the walls as well as in folders, character designs and landscape sketches and quick doodles of a hand, a flurry of fabric, a light reflection. Sabrina didn’t know someone could have so much talent, until Harvey started showing her his notebooks.

“Oh, just cleaning some designs, really,” he tells her as he moves closer to his desk. Sabrina follows him in, closing the door behind her as a second thought, wave of the hand behind her back. Zelda did tell her to practice, after all. “I need to practice with ink a little bit more, my shading isn’t quite there yet.”

“It looks amazing,” she breathes out.

It really does, the drawing of a werewolf almost jumping at you out of the page. The details of the fur, and the teeth, really are what is catching Sabrina’s attention. And maybe she should worry, that he watches so many horror movies with Ambrose and always draws about monsters, vampires and other supernatural themes. But it all looks too great to question.

“You think so?”

“Yes, of course!”

He grins once more, bumping his shoulder against her to hide how awkward he is every time she pays him a compliment. Aunt Zelda explained it to her once, that it’s normal for people who grew up in difficult environment to accept compliments, because all they expect is criticism, and it broke Sabrina’s heart. She doesn’t know how to make it clear to Harvey, how amazing she thinks he is.

“Maybe you should do a portrait of me,” she teases instead.

He snorts, a little louder than usual. “Yeah, no.”

She turns toward him, and has to look up to meet his eyes, even as he looks away. “And why’s that?”

He’s blushing now, red high on his cheeks and the tip of his ears, still refusing to look at her. “Because it’s harder, when the model is pretty. More chances to mess it up.”

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to really understand what he means, before she’s blushing furiously too. In all of her years of being friend with Harvey, and the past few months of seeing him as potentially-more-than-friends, she doesn’t remember a single instance of a compliment that was casual but flirty, no theatrics, no joke to cover it under. Just a compliment, raw and heartfelt.

She’s the one to look away then, under the pretence of shuffling some of the papers around so she can look at his other drawings. Her ears play tricks on her, because she swears Harvey sighs a little before he takes a step back, then another until he sits on his bed. She still won’t look at him, not until her face isn’t on fire anymore and her heart doesn’t race like she just ran a marathon.

“Hey so, fun fact,” Harvey breaks the silence between them after a couple of minutes. “Dr Cee is going to his comics convention this weekend, and he wants me to come with him.”

Dr Cerberus is the reason why Harvey started drawing so much. Hours spent at the bookstore, reading comics and sipping milkshakes, have made Harvey quite friendly with the quirky owner. Dr Cee even promised Harvey a part-time job, once he will be old enough, and told him he would gladly see some sketches ideas for new posters around the store.

He’s also, though unknowingly, the perfect excuse for Sabrina to have Harvey out.

“Oh, you should definitely go!” she exclaims, finally turning to face him.

Harvey seems taken aback by her sudden burst of cheerfulness, not that she can blame him for it. It’s quite the whiplash from a few seconds ago.

“You think?”

“Definitely.” She goes to sit next to him, one leg under her so she can face him, close without being intimate. “You could even take a few drawings with you to show around. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to art school?”

“I mean, yeah, but like when you say you want to be an astronaut. It would be cool, but it’s not entirely doable.”

“Why not? You’re talented and hard-working, and you want it so badly. You can do whatever you want.”

The sky is his limit, whereas Sabrina’s path was chosen for her before she was even born. A few years of human high school, followed by a witchy diploma at the Academy, followed by years in the coven where everyone says she belongs. No choice but to follow in her father’s footsteps, to hide in the shadow of his greatness.

She envies Harvey’s freedom to do as he wants, to have the liberty to make mistakes and try again. As the daughter of Edward Spellman, she will never be granted that chance.

“Maybe you’re right,” Harvey says after a while. “Will you help me pick my best drawings?”

“Sure!” she beams. “How about some tea to get us started?”

He nods, before he grabs one of his folders, and Sabrina takes it as her cue to go downstairs. Only Aunt Zelda is in the kitchen, smoking and reading a book. If she listens carefully, she can hear Hilda in the living room and Ambrose downstairs, tending to their latest client.

She grabs a couple of mugs, dropping twin bags of tea in the before she turns the kettle on. No need to look behind her shoulder to feel the weight of Zelda’s stare on her.

“He’ll be gone, don’t worry.”

“Good,” is all her aunt’s answer.

 

…

 

Sabrina wants the record to state that she doesn’t have a date for the Winter Wonderland. Susie, Roz, Harvey and she all agreed to go together, as friends. It just so happens that Harvey and she arrived together because, well, they do live together so it wouldn’t be logical for them to arrive at different times. And she dances with all three of them; sometimes together as a group, screaming the lyrics of an old song or messing a choreography so badly from laughing too much. Roz forces her into a duet when an old Beyoncé song starts playing, and she spends some quality time with Susie in a corner, since Susie doesn’t like dancing all that much.

If she so happens to dance a couple of songs with Harvey too, well.

They did come together. As a group. As friends.

It’s not weird for friends to have fun together, right? It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything, and it’s not as if other guys are lining up to ask her to dance, or other girls are taking Harvey aside to flirt with him. Everyone else is busy doing their own thing, which is fine. Sabrina only needs her group of friends to enjoy herself anyway.

And then the Bruno Mars song she was dancing to with Harvey turns into a slow balad by Adele, and she isn’t so certain anymore. Harvey’s arms fall back at his sides, before he swings them back and forth then clasps his hands in front of him with a little pout.

Sabrina is certain he’s trying to find a polite way out, which makes it all the more surprising when he softly asks, “Wanna dance, Brina?”

Her smile splits up her face, so much so that she can only nod in reply as she takes a step closer to him. One of her hands hands on his shoulder, while he puts his on her hips, and for a moment she’s thrown off-balance by the unfamiliarity of this all. But then he’s pulling her closer, and her other hand find the back of his neck as they sway to the music.

She presses her cheek against his collarbone, eye closing, a sigh on her lips. This is nice. Better than nice, even, because Harvey is warm and solid against her, his hands anchoring her to the here and there. In his arms, she can almost forget the High Priest wants her to start at the Academy in January, a good nine months before her Dark Baptism.

They want her to start her education as early as possible, to put her on the path to greatness, but Sabrina isn’t ready to say goodbye to her human life yet. Her high school, her friends, her teachers. Harvey. They are yet to discuss what will happen to him, once she no longer goes to Baxter High. Once they will no longer be able to hide the truth from him.

“This is nice,” she whispers.

She isn’t sure he heard her, but then he’s pulling her closer, arms crossed against her back, so maybe he did. Maybe he’s feeling the same. Maybe this is it, finally.

The song ends with fading notes on a piano, replacing by something equally soft and romantic that Sabrina doesn’t recognise. She doesn’t care, not when Harvey is still holding her close, his cheek pressed against the top of her head and his heart beating against her ear. She wants to stay in that moment forever, him and her and beautiful music. Nothing else.

“Do you want to go home?” he asks her when a third song comes to an end and they still haven’t stopped.

She looks up at him, soft smile and even softer eyes, a look of wonder on his face. His hand moves up to cup her face, his thumb barely more than a caress on her cheek. He doesn’t do anything else, anything more, so she nods her approval and lets him guide her outside the school’s gym hall.

She catches Susie’s eyes on the way out, her friend brandishing two happy thumbs up at her before she disappears into the crowd. Everything is silent and cold outside, winter settling in on Greendale. Harvey shrugs off his jacket, so he can put it on her shoulders, keeping his arm here too so he can pull her against him.

That’s how they make their way back home, walking side by side and sharing body heat, Harvey pointing constellations out at her and telling her what they mean. The icy ground scrunches under their feet, an owl hooting quietly in the background. Peaceful. Perfect.

Finally making it home is a bit of a relief, if only because the warmth of inside bites at her cold cheeks and brings some life back to her legs. Harvey tells her to go and change, that he will be up with hot chocolates in five minutes, so she does just that.

Runs to her room and wipes the makeup off her face, slips off her dress and puts on warm, comfortable PJs instead. She’s waiting for Harvey by the door, which makes it all the more surprising when there is a knock on her window.

They figured out quickly enough that they could sneak through their windows to sit on the roof together, and have done so multiple times since Harvey moved in. Mostly at night, when one of them is kept awake by nightmares and needs company. A knock at the window when he dreams of his father, when her nights are nothing but blood and ash, and here they are. Comfort in the dead of the night.

Here he is tonight, twin mugs of hot chocolate in one hand as he helps her out the window and onto the roof. He waits until she’s seated to do the same, and to hand her the drink. The burning mug is soothing against her cold fingers, and she scoots closer to Harvey so he will keep her warm.

“Tonight was fun,” she comments softly.

“Yeah, it was nice.” He pauses, then, “We should do it more often.”

“Have fun? Damn, Harvey, and here I thought we had fun all the time.”

His chuckle is low and awkward, and he looks away from her. There is another moment of silence, before he squares his shoulders against her, as if preparing himself for battle. An intake of breath, before he says, “No, I mean. Dancing. Going out. We should do – do that again. Together if – if you want.”

Her cheeks might hurt from smiling too much, her heart painful where it drums against her ribcage. She can barely speaks through her grin when she asks, “Are you asking me out?”

He still won’t look at her, this gentle, beautiful, awkward boy. “May–maybe? I know it’s not – like that between us and – you can definitely say no but – you know…”

“Yes,” she whispers. His head turns so fast she’s afraid he hurt himself, his eyes so wide it makes her laugh. “Yes, Harvey, I’ll go out with you.”

“For… for real?”

She’s really laughing now, one of her hand letting go of the mug so she can cup his face, angle it so he will look into her eyes. There is more incredule wonder than anything else on his features, which makes the situation all the more delightfully ridiculous. Here she was, thinking Harvey would never look at her in a romantic light, unaware that he thought the exact same thing about her.

Here they are now, on the precipice of something new and utterly terrifying.

“Yeah, for real.”

He nods, to himself more than anything else, and licks his lips. It’s another moment of nothing, of just staring into each other’s eyes – her smiling and him looking determined – before he says, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

And, by Satan, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, please don't forget to kudos and review about your favourite parts! I love to hear your thoughts!


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